Am I Okay?
Queen Me shares ...
The same questions follow every woman through girlhood and adolescence: Can I really do this? Will I get it right? Am I okay?
—Oprah Winfrey
Actually, I didn’t even know if I would make it to the other side (adulthood). And if I did make it, who would I be? Would I like the person that emerged on the opposite shore?
While researching for my upcoming book tentatively titled Raising Up Queens, I read the work of Lyn Mikel Brown and Carol Gilligan. In Meeting at the Crossroads, Brown, Gilligan and collaborators followed girls as they transitioned from ages 8 and 9 to fourteen or so. Not surprisingly, their words described my experience—the experience I wrote about in Grab the Queen Power: Live Your Best Life! Although sometimes explained in clinical speak while using words like “disassociate” or “relational crisis,” the girls they studied described me. If it described me, then it probably described you too.
Neeti, a girl featured in the book, transitioned from being an outspoken twelve-year-old girl to an ‘underground woman’—a woman who covered up her feelings to protect herself and to avoid hurting others. Each year, the researchers observed Neeti adapt and change, disassociate and remove herself from relationships. According to the authors, “She (Neeti) described this move in vivid detail and was aware of leading a double life—knowing and yet pretending not to know what she really felt and what was really happening in her relationships.”
Another ‘problem’ adolescent girls seem to face more than their male peers, is the need to be perfect or play the good girl role.
Interestingly, Neetie understood that she was not perfect and that being perfect was an unattainable goal even though her comments to interviewers told a different story. Another subject Liza, at age fifteen, asked the therapists: “I would just like to know from you as a psychologists or people with that kind of degree, is there such a thing as a person who is not necessarily perfect but who has everything together all the time? Not appears to be, just does mentally, psychologically? Is there such a person? Is that possible?”
Of course, it’s not possible. Of course not! But how many of us spent so much of our lives trying to be the perfect girl? The good girl? Why did we expend the energy? And whom were we trying to please?
At the end of the study, female teachers at the Laurel School, the school the girls attended, had to ask themselves difficult questions. Led by Patricia L. Hall, psychologist and former Dean of Students for the school, the women attended three retreats to address the problems presented by the study. Patricia shared with researchers:
“It was first with a sense of shock and then a deep, knowing sadness that we listened to the voices of the girls tell us that it was the adult women in their lives that provided the models for silencing themselves and behaving like ‘good little girls.’” And after processing their ‘sadness’ and ‘remorse,’ the women realized something important. “Unless we, as grown women, were willing to give up all the ‘good little girl’ things we continued to do and give up our expectation that the girls in our charge would be as good as we were, we could not successfully empower young women to act on their own knowledge and feelings. Unless we stopped hiding in our expectations of goodness and control, our behavior would silence any words to girls about speaking in their own voice.”
Lions and tigers and bears, oh my. It’s really true! We must start with ourselves first before we can help our girls. Oh my. I tell you that I’m not playing the ‘good little girl’ role anymore. At least, compared to how I used to play it, I’m not. But still there’s a small voice that whispers to me, “You are still playing.” And the voice also whispers that the eyes of a very impressionable eight-year-old daughter are watching, learning.
Being angry or experiencing discord still feels wrong or bad. I don’t like it. I’m not comfortable expressing my truest feelings to others, especially if they hurt someone’s feelings or make someone mad. Good girls don’t act out. Good girls don’t say things that will be hurtful to others or make others mad. They don't say what they really mean. They don’t. They simply don’t. I don’t.
So for me, it’s about coming to grips with myself each and every day. By doing so, I will help my daughter navigate adolescence—what Mary Pipher refers to as a hurricane for unsuspecting girls.
Most girls recover from adolescence. It’s not a fatal disease, but an acute condition that disappears with time. While it’s happening…nobody looks strong. From the vantage point of high school, strong girls can tell their stories, but in junior high, they have no perspective. It’s impossible to have much perspective in a hurricane.
—Mary Pipher
To change the course for our daughters, nieces, granddaughters, or girls in general, we must fully come to grips with ourselves. We must recognize where we are still falling under a spell. As Brown and Gilligan tell us: “Women have to experience the present as different from the past—to feel that now we are not without power or all alone.”
Okay, I’m listening.
www.queenpower.com
disclaimer
The same questions follow every woman through girlhood and adolescence: Can I really do this? Will I get it right? Am I okay?
—Oprah Winfrey
Actually, I didn’t even know if I would make it to the other side (adulthood). And if I did make it, who would I be? Would I like the person that emerged on the opposite shore?
While researching for my upcoming book tentatively titled Raising Up Queens, I read the work of Lyn Mikel Brown and Carol Gilligan. In Meeting at the Crossroads, Brown, Gilligan and collaborators followed girls as they transitioned from ages 8 and 9 to fourteen or so. Not surprisingly, their words described my experience—the experience I wrote about in Grab the Queen Power: Live Your Best Life! Although sometimes explained in clinical speak while using words like “disassociate” or “relational crisis,” the girls they studied described me. If it described me, then it probably described you too.
Neeti, a girl featured in the book, transitioned from being an outspoken twelve-year-old girl to an ‘underground woman’—a woman who covered up her feelings to protect herself and to avoid hurting others. Each year, the researchers observed Neeti adapt and change, disassociate and remove herself from relationships. According to the authors, “She (Neeti) described this move in vivid detail and was aware of leading a double life—knowing and yet pretending not to know what she really felt and what was really happening in her relationships.”
Another ‘problem’ adolescent girls seem to face more than their male peers, is the need to be perfect or play the good girl role.
Interestingly, Neetie understood that she was not perfect and that being perfect was an unattainable goal even though her comments to interviewers told a different story. Another subject Liza, at age fifteen, asked the therapists: “I would just like to know from you as a psychologists or people with that kind of degree, is there such a thing as a person who is not necessarily perfect but who has everything together all the time? Not appears to be, just does mentally, psychologically? Is there such a person? Is that possible?”
Of course, it’s not possible. Of course not! But how many of us spent so much of our lives trying to be the perfect girl? The good girl? Why did we expend the energy? And whom were we trying to please?
At the end of the study, female teachers at the Laurel School, the school the girls attended, had to ask themselves difficult questions. Led by Patricia L. Hall, psychologist and former Dean of Students for the school, the women attended three retreats to address the problems presented by the study. Patricia shared with researchers:
“It was first with a sense of shock and then a deep, knowing sadness that we listened to the voices of the girls tell us that it was the adult women in their lives that provided the models for silencing themselves and behaving like ‘good little girls.’” And after processing their ‘sadness’ and ‘remorse,’ the women realized something important. “Unless we, as grown women, were willing to give up all the ‘good little girl’ things we continued to do and give up our expectation that the girls in our charge would be as good as we were, we could not successfully empower young women to act on their own knowledge and feelings. Unless we stopped hiding in our expectations of goodness and control, our behavior would silence any words to girls about speaking in their own voice.”
Lions and tigers and bears, oh my. It’s really true! We must start with ourselves first before we can help our girls. Oh my. I tell you that I’m not playing the ‘good little girl’ role anymore. At least, compared to how I used to play it, I’m not. But still there’s a small voice that whispers to me, “You are still playing.” And the voice also whispers that the eyes of a very impressionable eight-year-old daughter are watching, learning.
Being angry or experiencing discord still feels wrong or bad. I don’t like it. I’m not comfortable expressing my truest feelings to others, especially if they hurt someone’s feelings or make someone mad. Good girls don’t act out. Good girls don’t say things that will be hurtful to others or make others mad. They don't say what they really mean. They don’t. They simply don’t. I don’t.
So for me, it’s about coming to grips with myself each and every day. By doing so, I will help my daughter navigate adolescence—what Mary Pipher refers to as a hurricane for unsuspecting girls.
Most girls recover from adolescence. It’s not a fatal disease, but an acute condition that disappears with time. While it’s happening…nobody looks strong. From the vantage point of high school, strong girls can tell their stories, but in junior high, they have no perspective. It’s impossible to have much perspective in a hurricane.
—Mary Pipher
To change the course for our daughters, nieces, granddaughters, or girls in general, we must fully come to grips with ourselves. We must recognize where we are still falling under a spell. As Brown and Gilligan tell us: “Women have to experience the present as different from the past—to feel that now we are not without power or all alone.”
Okay, I’m listening.
www.queenpower.com
disclaimer
posted by Allyn Evans at 2:40 PM
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